Best jailbreak apps and games for iPhone

Now that jailbreaking an iPhone is as simple as visiting the right website, it’s hard not to want to tread into the exotic, somewhat sketchy seeming world of jailbreak apps. But what can you get from the grey market that you can’t get from Apple’s bright and shiny App Store? Just plenty.

Need to justify your switch to the dark side before you throw that ominous jailbreak slider? Take a look at some of our personal favorites. All of the apps listed below work on iOS 7.

Update July 7, 2014 by Emily Schiola: Added and replaced new and old apps.

nes4iPhone

Relive the glory days of the original Nintendo with this polished NES emulator for the iPhone. The virtual controls can’t quite match the red and black buttons you mashed back in ‘89, but we figure having every NES game ever made in your pocket more or less makes up for it.

My3G

Like its sibling MyWi, My3G lets you contort AT&T’s 3G connection in ways AT&T never intended. More specifically, you can run apps that are supposed to only have certain features over Wi-Fi networks, like FaceTime, over 3G networks.

Bite SMS

In addition to saving you time by allowing you to quick reply directly from a message’s pop up alert, Bite SMS features a host of other useful features such as quick compose, scheduled messages, auto-forward, auto-retry, passcode lock, and much more.

Zephyr

Despite iOS’s generally easy-to-use interface, multitasking on the iPhone can sometimes be a pain. If double-clicking the home button every time you want to switch apps feels clunky and inefficient to you, then check out Zephyr. Swipe up from the bottom of the screen to activate the app switcher, and swipe side-to-side to jump between recently used apps.

iDiscrete

iDiscrete not only allows you to hide your secret files behind a password, it blends in so well that the casual inspector of your phone won’t even know you have anything to hide. The “password” is actually a series of strategic screen touches on a fake load screen, and you can even disguise the app as one of your unused Apple icons, like stocks.

iBlacklist

As the name implies, iBlacklist can blacklist certain numbers but can also do a whole lot more. You can whitelist the people you want to access your phone for stricter control, choose one of four actions for blocked callers, and even schedule which times or days to apply different levels of blocking.

Auxo 2

Tons of developers have tried to reinvent iOS multitasking, but Auxo is arguably one of the best. The key feature is a card system that shows live previews of your open apps – a function so slick and useful that Apple sucked it up and included a very Auxo-like update to the native multitasking features in iOS7.

Activator

This is basically like IFTTT for your iDevice and it’s extremely useful. It allows you to set up trigger actions – things like triple-pressing the home button or shaking your phone – and assign them to specific functions like opening apps or executing other tweaks.

Despite the fact that Blackberry isnt’ doing so hot right now, the company’s last mobile OS update had some undeniably awesome features – most notably the keyboard’s predictive text feature. The tweak will guess what word you’re typing and display it just above the next key it thinks you’re going to hit. It is not yet compatible with iOS 7.

Hands Free Control

As you may have already guessed from the name, Hands Free Control lets you control your iPhone – specifically, Siri – without needing to press any buttons. This is done by setting an activation keyword (the default is just “Siri”) that, if spoken, will prompt your virtual assistant to start up.

Tether Me

Jailbreak tethering apps sort of fizzled out after Apple introduced ‘mobile hotspot’ functionality in iOS 6, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you shouldn’t use them. Mobile carriers sometimes charge you extra for tethering, but Tether Me is built with specific API restrictions that hide your activity from your carrier.

Nitrous

Fed up with slow page loading on your mobile browser? Give Nitrous a try. Normally, iOS restricts the nitro JavaScript engine so that it only works with Safari and iBooks. Nitrous unlocks this feature so it can work with any app that uses WebKit, which includes most third-party browsers.

Winterboard

Don’t care for the iPhone’s tasteful but bland home screen? Winterboard lets you reskin every aspect, including custom icons for apps. You can also choose from the hundreds of themes that artists have already cooked up.

CCControls

CCControls customizes the controls on your phone. This tweak gives you access to your controls and menu. With this app you can control the look of your menus as well as what duties they perform. Change the colors and layout of menus and what triggers airplane or sleep mode.

NoteCreator

Like you can do with a Mac laptop, NoteCreator lets you create notes in any screen. You can quickly pull up notes and copy and paste from text messages or write something in as soon as you think of it while working within other apps. The notes are saved to your account where you can go back to them.

iFile

iFile brings the Finder function on a desktop to a phone. You are able to create and organize files and folders like you would on a computer. This makes it handy for someone who uses a lot of emails or documents on the go.

BatterySafe

Any battery saving app is incredibly useful but not all of them perform tasks on their own, which can make preserving power stressful. BatterySafe senses when the battery is wavering and automatically turns off the things that drain it the most like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.